The theory of the „double diversion? is examined within the context of the European Union. The double diversion as originally proposed by Dr. William R. Freudenburg theorizes that few firms with privileged access to environmental rights and resources emit disproportional amounts of pollution while distracting attention so that they are rarely questioned about it. All EU facilities that reported emissions of toxic pollutants in 2008 were analyzed to look for levels of disproportionality in their emissions across and within different industries, compared to sales and employment data when possible. The results show a similar level of disproportionality compared to Freudenburg?s results based on U.S. industries, providing evidence that the double diversion is not a phenomenon that exists only amongst industries operating in the U.S. Across all sectors the Gini coefficient for toxic emissions is 0.983, which means that just a small fraction of firms are responsible for the majority of all toxic emissions. Two individual facilities out of 9,976 accounted for 13% of all toxic pollution emissions in the EU in 2008.
Relevant EU and U.S. policies are discussed and compared in order to hypothesize how such disproportionate emissions can continue to be released in the countries with some of the strictest environmental regulations in the world. Recommendations are given for further research that would be valuable in the field of disproportionality, especially given certain regulatory changes that will take place over the next decade.